


Abject apathy

by sweetlikesugar



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Forced Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Isolation, Pre-Canon, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23244337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetlikesugar/pseuds/sweetlikesugar
Summary: “What the fuck!” Aaron yells, looking around the bathroom Andrew pushed him into. He swallows a mortified noise when the lock clicks from the outside.“You’re staying here until you’re clean” Andrew calls from the outside. “Four days”.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Aaron Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard
Comments: 10
Kudos: 106





	Abject apathy

**Author's Note:**

> hey pls make sure you're okay with graphic vomiting and descriptions of drug withdrawal syndrome and also a throwaway line about past sexual abuse that can be a bit emotional

Everything is so nice.

That’s what Aaron loves about his medicine. It makes everything so nice. The lumpy couch feels like the softest of clouds. The tv buzzes with static like a swarm of angry wasps, but Aaron only hears the smooth sound of tumbling waves hitting the sandy shore in a soothing ebb and flow. His body feels suspended, numb and swathed in cotton. Every sensation feels dull against his skin, blurry around the edges. He feels weightless and anchored at the same time. 

He loves floating like that. It’s so nice. 

It’s always nice until Andrew comes back.

The front door slams. It makes Aaron flinch, but he stays motionless on the couch, trying to keep his eyes open watching Nicky trail behind Andrew nervously. They stop abruptly when they notice Aaron sprawled in the living room. 

Andrew moves towards him with a tenacity that triggers some primal part of his brain. The slant of his brow and the tightness of his jaw screams _DANGER DANGER DANGER_ and Aaron’s pulse, lazy from opiates, valiantly attempts to kick up as adrenaline trickles into his bloodstream. The sudden clash of impulses makes him dizzy, but he still attempts to put some distance between them, moving slowly like he’s struggling through thick honey.

Andrew grabs him by the bicep and drags him off the couch, making Aaron trip over his feet as he tries to pull away, his fear aggravated by the drugs in his system, because he knows this grip, the unyielding force of it, and knows it’s never good when he’s on the receiving end of it.

“Let go” Aaron slurs, digging bare soles of his feet into the floor but they provide no resistance especially when Andrew is that much stronger than him.

“I’ve had enough of your shit” Andrew growls and Aaron freezes, panic clogging his throat and piercing through the sedative fog in his mind. He knows this tone, these exact words spat in this particular order. 

He opens the door at the end of the hall and all but throws Aaron into the room and slams the door shut before Aaron can recover from the shock.

“What the fuck!” Aaron yells, looking around the bathroom Andrew pushed him into. He swallows a mortified noise when the lock clicks from the outside. 

“You’re staying here until you’re clean” Andrew calls from the outside. “Four days”.

“Asshole!” Aaron rattles the doorknob, increasingly hysterical. “You can’t do that!”.

“I just did. And don’t try to get Nicky to let you out. He won’t”.

Nicky says something, muffled. 

“No, he has to learn”.

Aaron hears footsteps going away from the bathroom. He yanks on the doorknob harder, shaking the door in its hinges. 

Footsteps back again. Something drags. The doorknob jumps once and when Aaron tries to tug on it again it doesn’t give. 

“Did you put a fucking chair under the doorknob?!”.

No response.

Footsteps away.

Silence.

* * *

Nicky bites his lip watching as the door shakes and rattles as Aaron pounds on it from the other side. He winces at the anguished roar coming from the bathroom.

“Are you sure he’s okay?”.

“He’s going to be fine” Andrew drones flipping through channels. “He just needs to get it out of his system”.

“We could’ve dropped him off at a rehab facility” Nicky sighs. 

Andrew scoffs.

* * *

Aaron hates coming down. He spent the first couple of hours riding out the last dregs of his high, but now it’s coming to an end. His heartbeat kicks up again and it’s almost painful after hours of the sluggish twitching of his chest. The first solid thump of it makes him gasp.

He’s shivering, hot and cold at the same time, hands shaking and cold, nails blue. He tugs a hood on and tucks his feet underneath himself to warm them up. He tries to breathe through it, swallowing around nausea rising in his throat. He curls up on the floor mat and squeezes his eyes shut.

Withdrawal starts sooner than he expected. He’s shaking properly now, muscles cramping and spasming painfully and a hot tight pressure behind his eyes bodes for a hellish migraine. His stomach seizes, and Aaron groans tightly.

God, he can’t stay here anymore.

He crawls to the bathroom door and pounds on it weakly. 

“Let me out” he moans, forehead pressed to the worn wood. “Please, please let me out, I can’t--” he cuts himself off to breathe through a crippling wave of nausea. “Andrew, let me out!”.

Silence.

Anger swells in his chest, white-hot and uncomfortable.

“Asshole!” he pounds on the door. “Let me out! I’m clean, I’m fucking clean now, let me the fuck out!”.

Silence.

He screams and kicks the door.

* * *

  
  


He dozes for a few hours, halfway between sleep and awareness and jumpstarts when his stomach gives a warning lurch. Saliva starts building in his mouth and Aaron crawls to the toilet, teeth clenched against the pain of cramping muscles. He folds himself over the rim just in time, but he doesn’t open his mouth quickly enough, and the first burning slew of bile sprays through his nose and between his teeth.

Aaron groans and unhinges his jaw, trying to swallow air but it gets stuck in his throat and he chokes on it, triggering another bubbling influx of vomit. It dribbles down his chin and nose and he coughs, gagging and spitting. He whimpers through the dry heaving, stomach muscles contracting in agony. 

His skin is clammy and hot to touch. He spits once, twice, and flushes the toilet. Bracing himself on the sink he hauls himself up clutching the rim with a white-knuckled grip. He rinses his mouth and washes his face, tugging off the ruined hoodie and throwing it in the corner of the cold room.

He collapses back on the tiled floor and closes his eyes. 

* * *

The door opens.

Aaron’s head rolls weakly over the rim of the tub where he’s curled in on himself, freezing cold, sweaty and shivering. 

Andrew walks in with a steaming bowl and a change of clothes. The smell of food makes his stomach roll in protest. 

“Let me out”.

“No”.

“Andrew, let me out” he crawls out of the tub gracelessly and stumbles towards Andrew who backs out of the bathroom in two quick strides.

“Let me out, please--” Andrew grabs him by the front of his sweat-soaked shirt. 

“Shut up” he growls.

Aaron grabs Andrew’s forearm with his freezing hands. “Please. Please, Andrew, let me out”.

He’s so pale. Aaron was always slighter than Andrew, but now the difference is stark, with Aaron’s purpling hands shakily clawing at Andrew’s arm. He looks sick and gaunt, and his eyes glisten wetly, moisture beading on his lower lash line

“Andrew--” he’s shivering so bad, and Andrew sees his eyes glaze over as Aaron sags lightly in his hold until he blinks away the dizzy spell. He anchors his feet to the floor again. 

He looks so small. Andrew has never noticed that before. 

“I’m gonna get clean, promise--” Aaron is talking, still quiet and watery but faster now, seeing Andrew’s resolve waver. “I’m gonna, I’m gonna, just please, please let me out, I can’t, I can’t-- Andrew, please--”.

_(I can’t, I can’t, please, please don’t, I can’t, I can’t--)._

Andrew can’t look at him, but he can’t look away.

He tightens his grip on Aaron’s clothes and ignores how his breath hitches. 

“Not yet. Two more days” Andrew pushes him back deeper into the bathroom.

“Andrew--”.

The door slams shut. The lock clicks from the outside.

Aaron is left deep in the cold bathroom, breathing heavily with no hope of leaving. He kicks the door.

“Fuck you!”.

* * *

  
  


It’s another day before Nicky inches into the bathroom, slow and spooked when Aaron writhes in a bout of cravings so intense he feels his gums itch with such acute discomfort he might just pull out his teeth to stop it.

“Please let me out, let me out Nicky please--” he can see Nicky’s resolve weaken without Andrew there to bark orders like a prison warden.

“I can’t--”.  
  


“Please, I’m clean now, I’m clean, I promise--” Andrew probably went through his room to throw out his pills, but he has a stash in a place he knows Andrew would never go for, and if he could only get Nicky to get him _out of here--_

“No you’re not” Andrew pops out behind Nicky’s shoulder. “You’re still sweating it out”.

Aarons snarls, curling his shaking hands into fists. “Fuck you”.

“So you’ve said”.

Aaron lunges, crawling over Nicky, unsure whether he wants to get out of the bathroom or just clock Andrew. His knee catches Nicky’s jaw and he cries out.

Andrew snatches Aaron almost mid-air, holding him down effortlessly. Aaron jerks and hisses like a feral cat and Andrew drags him back into the bathroom. He wrestles Aaron until he has him backed against the wall, one hand fisted in the front of his hoodie, the other gripping the back of Aaron’s neck forcing him to look right at Andrew.

Aaron is shiny with sweat, face pale and gaunt, eyes bloodshot and dark-rimmed. He’s breathing like he ran a marathon, still seething, upper lip curled over his teeth lightly.

Nicky watches them warily from the doorway to the bathroom.

“When you get out of here, tomorrow,” Andrew says, voice low and hard in a way that has Aaron listening against his will, “there will be no drugs in this house that you can get high off of. None. I found all your stashes”. He holds Aaron’s gaze. “ _All_ of them. There’s nothing left”.

Andrew watches Aaron snarl some more, but underneath all his anger there’s fear.

“Nothing you can take. Nothing at all”.

When he lets Aaron go, the other teen doesn’t move.

When the bathroom lock clicks from the outside, all they hear is screaming.

* * *

Andrew opens the bathroom door on the fourth day to see Aaron stretched out in the tub staring at the ceiling.

“Not so keen to get out anymore?”.

Aaron lolls his head to the side to stare at him coldly. “Why? Did I earn my parole?”.

“Get out of here”.

Aaron climbs out of the tub with difficulty. His nails are blue and his hands are still shaking. He stops in the doorway with a slanted look as if expecting Andrew to push him back in at any moment.

Andrew scoffs and pushes him out of the bathroom.

They shuffle into the kitchen where Nicky is fluttering nervously all over the place.

“Finally! Are you hungry?”.

Starving, but he’s not sure how much his stomach can handle.

“A little”.

They eat. Nicky distracts all of them by chattering endlessly about his job. Aaron pretends he doesn’t feel Andrew looking at him like he’s an ancient artifact.

“I’m going to bed”.

He closes the door quietly and looks around his room. It looks exactly as he left it, even though he knows Andrew turned it upside down.

He lies down on his stomach and reaches under his bed as far as he can. He pats around for the uneven surface where the wall meets the floor and digs his nails into the little gap. The tiny panel pops open. He twists his shoulder painfully to push his hand into the small cavity up to his wrist.

It’s empty.

Aaron gasps. Curses. Paws a bit more frantically.

Empty. 

The bedroom door springs open.

Andrew crosses his arms over his chest.

“Told you. Found all of them”.

Aaron wrenches his arm free and sits up angrily. 

“Fuck off”.

Andrew turns around and walks out, leaving Aaron alone, on the floor, hands shaking.

Everything is shit.

Aaron wishes he could make it nice.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> have some pre-canon. if you liked it pls leave kudos and comments and i'm always down to gossip on [ tumblr](https://mindlesslittlefreak.tumblr.com) or [ twitter](https://twitter.com/raccoon_dad)


End file.
